Grateful for my Blessings

After work on Fridays I usually bring my laptop home (James does not like that I do this since my laptop is the server and it throws his laptop into a nervous wreck when I take it out of the office. But I do it anyway. He keeps reminding me that he is my boss. I say, "yes, I know, Dear." Then he threatens to cut my salary in half. I say, "that will be fine. Half of zero is still zero.") so that on Sunday night I can snuggle into bed and watch "House" and check all my friends' and family members' blogs to see what is up in their neck of the woods.

Blogging and email bring us all so much closer together, as if we see each other all the time, and yet we live states or even countries apart. Last night after reading the blogs, and even this morning, I am feeling very sentimental and quite thankful for my many blessings. So much is shared on blogs that perhaps in former days would only be shared over an intimate lunch. Moms going through tough times and needing to vent; Moms experiencing great joy from their unpredictable and spontaneous kids and wanting to share it; Moms feeling great heart ache or great joy for a variety of reasons; New babies or growing babies, old kids and young, home improvement projects, fun vacations, education, work, church callings, sports, whatever is on their minds, they write it.

I have a friend from college who lives in Arizona. Her daughter was just diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic disorder that will soon lead to blindness. She and I did our social work internships together at BYU. We were at different elementary schools, but we teamed up to do presentations at classrooms on a variety of subjects. We also planned a parents' night in which her parents, who happen to be well-known authors and quite famous for their program that many of you have probably heard of called "Joy School," (quite similar to the neighborhood preschool that my friends and I do) came to speak to the parents in our school district about parenting. Having grown up in a large family and having these great people as parents, I'm sure that my friend does not lack parenting skills, but could she have been trained to have to face something so un-planned and heart-breaking as this? Probably not, but I have great confidence in my friend and know that if there's anyone who can turn tragedy into triumph, it is her.

Every day my prayers include gratitude for the excellent health that our family enjoys. Half of my kids probably have a blood disorder, but it is treatable and not life-threatening, especially since we're lucky enough to know about it and how to treat/prevent excessive bleeding. Half of my kids might also have Celiac disease, but it is also treatable (the treatment would certainly not be enjoyable, in my view, but definitely beats the alternative, as we have seen with James' mom) and we're unusually lucky to be aware of that also. I ask Heavenly Father regularly to continue to bless us with good health, yet in the back of my mind the fear lingers of what may lie ahead for us. Since most of my kids have been given priesthood blessings that tell them that they have a special mission to perform on this earth, I feel nervous of what that mission might be. Of course, technically you could say that all of us have a special mission to perform on this earth, as we do, but what if their mission involves more heartache or suffering than I would prefer they have to go through? I recently started taking Niacin at night for my high cholesterol. I've had high cholesterol since high school and each time it's been tested the LDL is high (the rest is fine). So this time my dr. said that since I already run 4 miles a day and still have high cholesterol, it is worth trying Niacin to see if it brings the LDL down. I don't know if it is working, but it doesn't bother me to take it (it did the first few nights, but doesn't anymore) and maybe it will protect my heart. High cholesterol runs in my family. Still, when you look at our health situation and the size of our family, it is incredible how blessed we are to all have good health. Watching as others suffer with a variety of health issues and hearing of more new ones every day -- on the news, in the neighborhood, in email, or on blogs -- it is yet another reminder of how blessed we are.

My cousin in Oregon and my friend in Layton are both going through the process of trying to adopt a baby. I feel a lot of emotions as I think about our adoption of our twins, what a challenge it was, and what a challenge it still is, and how grateful I am for them. I think that raising them will be the greatest challenge/assignment/trial of my life, and how I accomplish that will be one of the biggest determining factors of the person that I end up being. I am very scared for their teenage years. Yet they've had more than one priesthood blessing stating that they would serve missions as young men and be married in the temple, and I cling to that because that means that they will make good choices while in their teenage years (for the most part). I've been so blessed to be able to bear children and I've watched the heartache of my loved ones who have struggled to conceive. They have been in my prayers regularly as I've wondered why Heavenly Father has prevented them from having this wonderful blessing of having a child, or forcing them to wait for long periods of time before they are finally able to conceive. None of us know why this happens. We know that Annaka was meant to be in Eric & Michelle's family, and that is very likely why it took so many years for Michelle to conceive. But in some cases we don't know why couples struggle with infertility and have to watch baby after baby being born to other mothers and are left to ask Heavenly Father, "why not me?" My heart aches for them and I wish I could somehow fix it. I understand only a smidgen of what they feel because after both Ammon & Kija's deaths we did not conceive as quickly as we would have liked to. Yet with all my others it was as if I only had to snap my fingers and I was pregnant. It isn't fair, and I understand how blessed I am. I would have liked to have had more children, but I am also so grateful for the children that I do have.

Isn't it interesting how after we have survived trials we look back on them and realize that, though we suffered and hurt through them, they were tailor-fit for us, for either the needs we had in our personal development or for the ways that we would be able to help others because of what we had learned from them? And isn't it amazing how Heavenly Father provides us the strength we need to get through them even though we stood looking into our future as heart-ache sets in and wondered how we would ever survive? When I was fifteen and received my Patriarchal Blessing, I read it wondering what it could all mean. As I've gotten older I have watched how parts of it have come to fruition and lines that had no meaning before suddenly made sense. The puzzle pieces are coming together. I realize that my blessing speaks in depth about the losses of Ammon and Kija, and even the adoption of the twins. I look at the rest of it and wonder what still is in store for me. I'm sure it will include lots of blessings, even if I don't see them that way at first.